To the Editor:

In discussions with people who are clamoring for universal background checks, I find many people don’t understand how far the law goes and what it will make illegal. 

In my safe I have six guns that belong to a young soldier serving overseas who could not take his firearms with him. He put his household goods in storage and his choices were to leave the firearms in the storage unit where they were vulnerable to theft and also rust or ask someone he trusted with a safe to hold them.

Under the proposed background check law he and I would both be guilty of six felonies each once he gave me the firearms to store. One for each gun. And when I return them to him six more each. Twelve felonies total for each of us. Under the new proposed law to stay legal we would both have to travel to a gun store, enter his guns into the gun store’s books, have me fill out paperwork as if I was buying them and pay a fee that in our area averages $35 per firearm. Then repeat it in reverse to give them back to him when he returns, paying again.

More than $400 in fees and several hours wasted to do the responsible thing and have someone safely store his firearms, but he could leave them in a storage locker more open to theft without hassle or expense. And, both he and I are exempt from the background checks because we have concealed carry permits! So hours of wasted time and hassle and hundreds of dollars spent just for meaningless paperwork to avoid breaking the law for two people just trying to do the right thing and be responsible.

How would this stop crime?

There are other things these laws would make illegal. If you offer to help someone clean or repair a gun and take it to your home to do it that’s a felony. If you loan someone a firearm to go target shooting it’s a felony unless you hand it off and get it back all while physically at the range. Farmers and ranchers who have a rifle on hand to defend livestock and let their employees use it? Felony if the employee even picks it up and the owner isn’t physically there. Offer to help someone move and their firearms are in a box on your truck and they are not with you? Felony. Leave your firearms in a friend’s hunting cabin when you are not there? Felony. Ask someone to drop your hunting rifle off at the gunsmith for you? Felony. Going on a hunting trip and you carry someone’s rifle to the hunt for them? Felony.

Any time they can argue possession of the firearm changed hands, even for a brief moment, is enough to charge a felony for not doing a background check. At one time or another almost all gun owners have done something harmless along these lines that they want to turn into felony charges.

Don’t be fooled. These laws are about creating gotcha moments to turn law-abiding gun owners into felons, not about reducing crime.

Tim Glance

Waynesville